


Thunderbolt (TM) Fantasy

by Mertiya



Series: Hackers AU [2]
Category: Thunderbolt Fantasy 東離劍遊紀 (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Hackers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Sexual Content, Kidnapping, Lang's neuroatypical but I didn't define it any more than that, Language Barrier, Lin has no idea how to deal with Lang, Lin is I swear even more of a troll than usual, Lin is Japanese American, Lin is a trash boi, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Shang and Lang are Chinese, Shang is constantly facepalming, Torture, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-04-23 00:38:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Lin is a former black hat hacker who just wants to get into his favorite white hat's pants.  When he finds said colleague's best friend passed out on his doorstep, he very begrudgingly steps into help, which promptly leads to him getting swept up in all sorts of drama and unpleasantness.  This is why you shouldn't be a good samaritan.





	1. Arrival

 

            The airport was huge and bustling, which Làng had expected—if anything, it wasn’t really as busy as the one they’d left fifteen hours ago. But there was enough sudden rush of noise as he stepped out of Customs that he pulled his noise-canceling headphones out of his bag, switched them on just to be safe, and went over to find a seat and wait for Líng Yá.

            He was full-body exhausted, even though he’d slept a lot on the plane flight, but then, he thought, squinting at the early morning light, he had no idea what time it actually _was_ here, and he was fairly sure his body definitely disagreed about what time it _should_ be. With a sigh, he started digging in his backpack to see if he could find another fruit bar, and sadly realized he was all out. He needed food, but he was so sleepy, and his English wasn’t so fluent. Líng Yá should be here soon, anyway.

            Làng woke with a sudden start to realize he’d dozed off and nearly fallen off the chair. A glance up at the clock told him he’d been sleeping for at least an hour, and still no Líng Yá. Where the hell was he? Làng pulled out his phone to text and realized with a shock that he didn’t have coverage. Why would he?

            Damn. He was starving, too. Well—fuck it. Líng Yá would just have to catch up. He couldn’t waste any more time at the airport when he needed to find and warn Shāng. He understood English fine, although he didn’t read or speak it well, and ordering food mostly just meant pointing at pictures anyway.

            A few gates down, he found a sandwich place, pointed at one of their large pictures that looked surprisingly edible, handed over some cash—he _had_ remembered to change his money, at least—and was rewarded with something that looked like a pile of meat and cheese too big for his hands. At least he wouldn’t starve to death in the meantime.

            He sat down in one of the uncomfortable airport chairs to eat it while he fumbled with his guitar case and dug out the piece of paper on which he’d noted Shāng’s last address. Presumably he could get a taxi there, and Ryouga would follow as needed.

            Eating with determination afforded by the combination of hunger and an imminent goal, he finished the sandwich in five minutes, tossed the wrapper in a nearby trashcan, and headed for the exit. Easy enough to find a taxi, and fortunately he had had the foresight to copy down the address in both Chinese and English; the English characters were sloppy, but not so sloppy that pointing at them and saying an accented English, “Please go?” wasn’t enough to get the taxi driver nodding his head and smiling.

            He watched the sun-drenched landscape roll by out of the window, hugging his guitar case to his chest and imagining Shāng's face when he saw him. Surprised, probably. Perhaps a little angry, but Làng felt he had the high ground when it came to the emotion of anger. If it hadn’t been for Ryouga, he wouldn’t even have known where Shāng was, because his friend was terrible at remaining in contact. Running away because you were trying to protect people was all very well, but Làng considered there were better ways than abandoning your best friend for months.

            Maybe it would have been different if Làng had ever managed to get up the guts to confess his feelings; maybe it wouldn’t have been. Either way, at least this meant he got to see Shāng again. That was what mattered, he thought, leaning his cheek against the cool window. God, he was exhausted and worried. He needed to make it to Shāng before Xiao could.

            It was hot in the taxi; Làng’s face felt uncomfortably tight, as if the heat were pressing on the inside, trying to force its way out. How much further could it be? They were going so slowly. Traffic, of course—Làng was no stranger to it—but now it felt as if every delay meant the likelihood of Shāng dying ticked up. If it ticked up high enough—

            His throat was throbbing, and there was an ache building at the base of his ears. He’d been awake for too long, he supposed; he needed a bed. There would be time to find one once he’d warned Shāng. For now, he could doze, and he’d probably feel at least a little better once he woke up.

            He woke with a jerk and a gasp to find that the taxi had stopped in a slightly shabby neighborhood, with grey apartment buildings but also a few little boxes of window plants that made a pretty, colorful contrast to the rest. Làng squinted over at the amount of money he owed, pulled out some cash and handed it to the driver, and then got out. As the taxi drove away, he caught a lungful of the exhaust and started to cough.

            And then he couldn’t stop. He didn’t feel better; he felt worse. His skin was hot and tight, and he couldn’t stop coughing. He couldn’t seem to get air into his lungs; there was a horrible strident wheezing noise coming out of his lungs, and Làng had a moment of panic, because he needed his vocal cords, and then he realized it was worse than that. If he couldn’t breathe—

            He staggered a few steps sideways and tripped over a set of stairs, couldn’t stop himself from falling, and barely managed to keep the guitar case from landing on hard stone. He landed on it instead, the pain shooting through his back causing him to curl up around the case, and gasped in another difficult breath. _Bù Huàn_ , he thought dizzily, desperately. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hold onto consciousness.


	2. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lin is a good samaritan in about as sketchy a manner as he is everything. Contains mild extortion and a lot of lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering why the chapter number is jumping, I'm sort of guesstimating--the fic itself is done, but it's not in chapter format yet.

There was a boy lying on Lin’s doorstep. Well, technically the doorstep of his building. Either way, it was a problem.

            He was nothing more than a bundle of stained clothes and matted hair, and if he hadn’t been sprawled quite so centrally in the middle of the doorway, Lin was quite sure he would have simply stepped around him. As it was, however, that would likely be rather difficult.

            With a grimace, Lin prodded the bundle with his foot, getting a moan in response.

            “Move,” Lin told the boy, but there was no response. He reached out and shook what he thought was the shoulder. The boy thrashed a little, nearly kicking Lin’s shin, and Lin’s fingers brushed against a hot cheek, damp with sweat. He was sick, Lin realized, feverish.

            Ugh. Now Lin had _germs_ on his hand. And he was wearing designer jeans; he didn’t want to wipe his hand on those. He just wanted to go home and perhaps trade some choice remarks with his favorite white hat. But it might be trouble if someone actually _died_ on his doorstep.

            After dithering for a moment longer, he pulled out his phone and called 911, explained in a few sentences where he lived and that there was someone apparently very ill on his doorstep, and then started to step around the boy again, because presumably the EMTs would find him and take care of him.

            Another thrashing motion turned the young man over, green eyes flying open and staring into Lin’s. He was surprisingly beautiful, Lin thought, though his lips were cracked and his eyes were dull and glazing over. Older than Lin had thought at first, he was small but clearly full grown, maybe late teens or early twenties. He had an instrument case tucked under one arm. The young man reached out towards him, his lips moving, and Lin wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid the hot, sticky fingers that grabbed his collar and pulled him down. “ _Bù Huàn_ ,” the young man rasped, and Lin froze.

            “What did you say?” he demanded, but the coppery lashes were already fluttering down over the eyes again, the brief moment of lucidity already gone. He sucked in a clearly difficult breath, the sound of it harsh and terrible, and Lin sat down next to him, mind working quickly. He hadn’t intended to get involved, but this was _interesting_.

            He flipped out his cell phone and called Kei Gai, not bothering to leave a voicemail, but just calling three times in a row until she got too annoyed to keep leaving it.

            “ _What_ ,” she snapped after the fourth ring.

            “Darling,” Lin said lightly. “I found someone dying on my doorstep, and I need you to make sure he’s covered by my health insurance when the ambulance gets here. Let’s say he’s my husband or something.”

            There was an incredulous pause. “Firstly, why should I do anything for you?” demanded Kei Gai. “Secondly, since when did you do anything for anyone else?”

            “Well,” Lin purred. “I thought you might not want your delightful new girlfriend to find out about your second source of income. As for the second, I don’t see why I need to tell you that.”

            Another pause, then an angry huff of air. “God, you’re an asshole. Fine. I don’t care enough. What name will he be coming in under?”

            Well, with luck, the young man would be too dazed to protest when he woke up and people were calling him by the wrong name. Lin hummed thoughtfully to himself, tapping his bottom lip with a finger. “Russell,” he said finally. “Russell Lin.”

            “Taking your last name?” Kei Gai asked. “Fine. I’ll make sure it’s in the system. Do not call me again.”

            “Of course not,” Lin said, fully intending to call her again if anything else came up. “Thank you ever so much, darling.”

            Wordless growl and the call dropped.

            The ambulance showed up a few minutes later. The EMTs accepted Lin’s frightened, garbled explanation that he’d come back from a shopping trip to find his husband collapsed on the steps. Unsurprisingly. After all, why would someone lie about something like that? They had a job to do and were more interested in assessing “Russell’s” symptoms than in questioning Lin.

            “Does he have any allergies?” one of the EMTs asked, as another one called for emergency oxygen.

            “Ah—none that we’re aware of,” Lin said, haltingly. He shrugged helplessly.

            “It looks like anaphylaxis,” said the EMT, bending over the boy’s form as they got him into the ambulance. “With difficulty breathing like this, I think epinephrine would be indicated anyway. Give him a shot,” she instructed one of the others.

            Well. If it was an allergic reaction, at least Lin _wouldn’t_ have germs on his hand. Small blessings. Indeed, the young man’s breathing started to ease as they reached the hospital, the unpleasant whistling noise fading, though he still wasn’t conscious. Lin gave them his insurance information as they checked the young man in and then hung around the waiting room playing Pokemon on his phone. After about half an hour, one of the nurses came out and asked if he was Russell’s husband. Lin nodded. “Is he all right?”

            “He’s recovering,” she said. “It was a severe allergic reaction leading to anaphylactic shock—do you know what that is?”

            Lin nodded. “We didn’t know he had any allergies,” he lied, wondering exactly what the boy had said and whether, if he was cogent, this was all going to fall apart.

            “Does he speak English?” the nurse asked. _So_. _Interesting_.

            “Ah—yes?” Lin gave her a wide-eyed confused look.

            “It’s just he’s only spoken what we think is Chinese since he woke up,” she said apologetically.

            “Well, he is from China,” Lin supplied, mind working again. A redheaded Chinese man who played guitar, didn’t speak English, and was looking for Shāng Bù Huàn—ah. That kid. The one Shāng sometimes talked about in that desperately fond, slightly exasperated manner. What was his name again? Làng Wū Yáo, that was it. “But he does speak English.”

            “He might still be a little confused, then,” the nurse said. “Why don’t I take you to see him?”

            “Please,” Lin said, opening his eyes wide and looking as desperate as he knew how. _Làng Wū Yáo_ , he thought in satisfaction. _Now what are you doing in San Francisco?_


	3. Out of the Frying Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lin takes Lang home from the hospital and surely nothing bad happens at all.

            Làng could breathe again, and he did not think he had ever been so eternally grateful for a physical sensation as he was at that moment. He had no idea where he was, except presumably still in San Francisco. A white room with a little bed in it and people hovering over him, talking rapidly in English. Too rapidly. Làng’s head was still swimming, and he was too overwhelmed to be able to parse anything that was being said. His English was spotty at the best of times, and his ability to speak was spotty at the worst, and this was definitely the worst, and, he realized with an unpleasant twist of his stomach, he was panicking, and that meant his breathing was getting ragged again, and he _needed_ to pull himself together, he needed to get to Shāng he was going to fail him, and then Shāng would _die_ but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ —

            “Hey.” Gentle hand on his shoulder; Làng was looking up at a pair of narrow red eyes in a face framed by long white hair. His first instinct was to pull away; he didn’t know this man, and he wasn’t sure he liked the feeling he was getting from him, not to mention that he smelled overwhelmingly of weed. But it was the first friendly face Làng had seen since he and Ryouga had parted ways at immigration— _personally_ friendly, at least.

            “Where am I?” he asked hesitantly, tensing but not quite moving away.

            The white-haired man smiled and said something in a soothing voice in English. Làng grimaced, trying to remember how you said, “I don’t speak English,” or “My English is terrible, does anyone speak Chinese?” But he kept coming up blank.

            “I don’t speak English,” he tried in Chinese. The strange man patted him on the shoulder and said something to the other people in the room. Doctors, probably, Làng thought dizzily. It would make sense, although how he had gotten here from where the taxi dropped him off, he didn’t know. Searching his memory came up with nothing much but a sense of cold stone underneath one cheek and the horrible sensation of not being able to get enough oxygen, no matter how much he struggled for it.

            If he was stuck here, there was no way he was going to be able to reach Shāng. Làng looked around for his phone, but he couldn’t see it anywhere. The doctors and the white-haired man were having a discussion now. Làng didn’t have time for it. Wearily, he forced his aching body to start to stand up, which caused the discussion to stop. One of the nurses moved towards his side, and the white-haired man interposed himself between them when Làng flinched back. He said something to Làng in English again, but the only word Làng managed to catch was “home,” and without any other context that didn’t really give him anything. The white-haired man said something sternly to the doctors, then turned back to Làng and said something rapid in a low voice something that ended with a badly-accented “Shāng Bù Huàn?”

            Làng felt his heart leap in his chest. “You know Shāng?” he asked.

            Pause. Nod. Làng had no idea if he’d actually understood, but there was a better chance if he got out of the hospital, he would be able to get to Shāng. And it seemed likely that the non-doctor was his best bet at getting out of the hospital. The white-haired man patted him reassuringly and then nodded toward the door, with a questioning look in his eyes. “ _Please_ ,” Làng said hoarsely, finally remembering a single syllable of English.

            There followed a somewhat-too-extended-for-Làng’s-taste deliberation between the white-haired man and the medical professionals. He kept trying to get up—every time he did, the white-haired man would say something to the doctors in a voice that sounded somewhere between irritated and apologetic, and then the discussion would start again.

            After what felt like an interminable amount of time, the white-haired man motioned to Làng and nodded at the heap of clothes that had been folded on the nearby chair and then at the door. One of the doctors said something else, sighed, threw his hands in the air and then motioned to the others. They all headed out of the room, and the white-haired man nodded to the clothes again and then turned his back.

            Làng suddenly swallowed hard. What had the doctors seen? What had they told this man? No, he reminded himself, that wasn’t important. What was important was finding Shāng. He took one more moment to swallow before stripping off the hospital gown and rapidly pulling back on his boxers, jeans, and slightly oversized t-shirt. “You can turn around now,” he said, even though he knew the other man wouldn’t understand him.

            Something in English. The man turned around, nodded at him, and gestured to the door. Time to go, then, Làng supposed.

~

            They Ubered back to Lin’s apartment. Wū Yáo was impatient; Lin could see it in the tense slope of his shoulders and the thin press of his lips, but he sat at the window and watched the city go by without trying to speak. Once they got back, he pulled out an address and jabbed a finger at it. Shāng’s, surprise, surprise.

            “Just come inside with me,” Lin said, pointing up to his own apartment. “I’ll text him, okay?”

            Blank incomprehension. Lin internally rolled his eyes. What was the _point_ of coming here without speaking a word of English? Surely he could just have texted Shāng if he needed to tell him something? Shāng talked about him practically incessantly. With a groan and a sigh, Lin pulled out his phone and went to Google translate.

            “Come up to my apartment,” he typed in and shoved it at Wū Yáo, who frowned and shook his head, saying something in Chinese, and then, at Lin’s own blank look, trying to type in something himself. After a moment, he muttered something that sounded profane under his breath and pointed at the keyboard. Lin yanked the phone back and typed, “I’ll text Shāng.”

            It wasn’t clear if Google had done its job, but Wū Yáo sighed and shrugged, maybe deciding that arguing on the street wasn’t going to get him any closer to his goal, and nodded.

            Inside the apartment, Lin sat down, pulled out his phone again, and showed Wū Yáo the picture of Shāng’s discord icon. The young man nodded eagerly, pulling out his own phone and pointing to its lack of signal with a frown. He didn’t even have a _phone plan_ that worked here. God. It was like accidentally adopting a duckling that didn’t know how to fucking swim. A half-drowned duckling.

            “You’re a complete idiot,” Lin told him in a pleasant voice, and he got a cautious smile in return. At least there were _some_ perks to the language barrier.

            Anyways, might as well go for Discord. Shāng would probably see that as quickly as a text anyway.

            Shāng was usually quite responsive, so Lin didn’t expect this to take terribly long. In the meantime, he waved Wū Yáo into the kitchen and dug out a couple of packets of instant cup noodles. He’d considered trying to keep the young man _away_ from Shāng, but if Wū Yáo was as bullheadedly stubborn as Shāng had described him, that was probably a losing battle. He might as well get credit from Shāng for being helpful. Perhaps for once, Shāng would actually recognize his efforts. When the microwave dinged, he pulled out the cup noodles, handed one to Wū Yáo, and sent along another message just to be clear.

            Wū Yáo sat at the table eating noodles and looking discontented, and Lin entertained himself by studying him. The young man was quite handsome, if rather small. Lin wondered idly if he’d be able to scoop him up in his arms. Now that he was seated and not lying on someone’s doorstep or in a hospital bed, it was more obvious how ridiculously long and teased out his hair was. The bright red was almost certainly a dye job, but Lin was fairly sure the hospital would have removed any extensions, and the hair looked real enough. He wondered if it would be rough or silky if he ran his hands through it. Lin enjoyed long hair.

            Wū Yáo looked up and scowled, saying something in Chinese that was probably, “What are you looking at?”

            Lin grinned at him. “You’re very beautiful,” he answered. “I enjoy the view.”

            He got a confused blink, whether at the fact he had actually answered or at his tone of voice, Lin couldn’t be certain. After a moment, Wū Yáo shrugged and went back to looking down at his phone. He didn’t have signal, of course, and Lin hadn’t given him the password to his WiFi, so what was he looking at?

            Lin waited patiently for about two minutes, then got up and went to peer over Wū Yáo’s shoulder, catching a glimpse of several colorful costumes he thought he recognized before the young man closed and locked his phone and frowned at Lin.           

            “Cosplay?” Lin asked in amusement. “Me too.” He pulled out his phone, navigated to the camera roll, and pushed it over to the other man. “See?” The Beatrice cosplay from last year had come out particularly well, although much to his disappointment, he hadn’t been able to bully Shāng into dressing up as Battler.

            Wū Yáo stared at it for a long moment, then gave a shy smile and slowly opened his own phone. The photos he pulled up were clearly older than the one Lin was showing him; the three cosplayers looked to be in their early or mid teens. Wū Yáo blushed furiously as Lin pointed to the Madoka and raised an eyebrow. Damn, Wū Yáo made a convincing girl; Lin was almost jealous, although being a teenager obviously made it easier.

            Who were the other two? Homura, sporting a most un-Homura-like grin, was head and shoulders taller than her accompanying Madoka, and she looked—very familiar. Lin sputtered as he realized, because that was _Shāng_. He wouldn’t even dress up in a white coat and trousers for _Lin_ , but here he was, far too big for the costume, blinking out from beneath a ridiculous long wig and grinning like a maniac. The third, Lin didn’t recognize, although whoever it was, he was having a lot of fun with pretending to drill into Wū Yáo’s chest with his Mami hair.

            For a moment, Lin wasn’t sure how to react, but after a moment, he flipped to one of his older cosplays and showed Wū Yáo.

            More time passed than he had expected, more quickly than he expected. Half an hour later, he realized they were laughing over Wū Yáo’s tiny and ferocious Jacuzzi, and Shāng still hadn’t gotten back to him. Oh, come on.

 

~

            “You _lost_ Làng?”

            “Hang on there, pal. If anyone involved got lost, it was _me_. He went through Immigration just fine, no trouble. Me, on the other hand, I spent _hours_ trying to convince them I wasn’t here on some kind of nefarious—”

            Shāng pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Líng Yá. Please.”

            “I don’t know where he is, and he’s not answering his phone—come to think of it, I don’t even know if his phone plan works here.”

            “You let him travel ten thousand kilometers to another country where he barely speaks the language, and you didn’t even check that his _phone plan_ —”

            “I was gonna be with him!”Líng Yá slammed both hands down on the desk. “Okay? I didn’t _let_ him come, he wasn’t going to listen to me, he wanted to warn you because Fox is gunning for your head. Kid spent like ten hours one day under questioning and when he came out instead of sleeping, he went home and booked a fucking flight! The hell was I supposed to do? You know how stubborn he is.”

            Waving a hand in surrender, Shāng turned back to his computer. “We’ll check the local hotels.”

            He had new messages from vapeduck420. Shāng rolled his eyes and quit out of Discord, because he did not have time for Lin’s annoying trolling today.

~

            Someone knocked on the door. Làng looked up eagerly, but Lin was frowning. He said something in English again, probably “Stay here,” as he got up from the kitchen table, shoving his phone back into his pocket in one smooth motion. Presumably he didn’t expect it to be Shāng, then? Làng pretended he hadn’t understood and followed him out into the little foyer. Lin gave him an irritable look as he peered through the peephole in the door. He said something else; this time Làng had no idea what it was. A voice spoke through the door in accented English, and Làng tensed, because he recognized that voice, because—

            He reached out to keep Lin from opening it, but Lin’s face was white and pale and his hands were shaking, and he was reaching for the latch.

            “I know you’re in there, Làng,” Xiào Kuáng Juàn said smoothly in Chinese. “And this door isn’t thick enough to stop a bullet.”


	4. Into the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow I was really sleepy when I posted this, additional warnings in the author's note

 

 

            This was fucked. This was _fucked_. There were two armed gunmen in his fucking apartment. What the _fuck_?

            _Do not panic,_ Lin told himself, forcing himself to take one deep breath and then another. The haze cleared a little from his eyes as he stood still and let the bodyguard pat him down. His weapon was his brain, anyway, he thought, dismissively. They weren’t going to be taking _that_ away from him any time soon, and they certainly wouldn’t find it by checking his pockets.

            The man who was clearly in command was tall and well-built, with shiny blue-black hair and round, vaguely Harry-Potter-esque glasses. He and Wū Yáo obviously hated one another, because the way the smaller man was trembling wasn’t fear. Lin knew fear, and he knew rage, and Làng was boiling with the latter. Which, when you came to think of it, might not be so good. Angry people did stupid things, and high velocity lead tended to be a very _final_ answer to stupidity.

            “He’s clean, Xiào,” the bodyguard reported in English. Xiào gave a bright smile and gestured for Lin to take his place against the wall with his hands up. Then he nodded to Làng to step forward, and, somewhat to Lin’s surprise, holstered his gun and stepped forward to do the patdown himself.

            As Xiào ran his hands down Làng’s body with a dark grin that suggested this wasn’t just about checking for weapons, Lin rolled his eyes. There was no need for him to put on this kind of powerplay given that he currently held the upper hand, and it just smacked of clumsiness to put himself so personally close to someone who had every reason to do him bodily harm and would absolutely do so given even half a chance. Lin was personally offended on behalf of social engineers everywhere. There was a sudden noise outside—probably the neighbor’s cat yowling again, and Xiào’s bodyguard glanced away for a moment.

            In a blur of motion, Làng brought his knee up into Xiào’s crotch; before Lin could even react, he’d flung Xiào across the room to crash into the bodyguard and was racing for the fire escape. Lin gasped in a breath of air and then followed, but he wasn’t quite fast enough—a strong hand grabbed his ponytail and yanked him back, and the cold barrel of a gun was pressed into his temple.

            Làng was already half out the window when Xiào rapped out something sharply in Chinese, and he turned. Lin could feel his heartbeat rising in his ears, because there was _absolutely_ no reason for Làng to stop, and if Làng didn’t stop, he, Lin, enigmatic_gale, vapeduck420, best black hat (now nominally white hat) hacker on the west coast, was going to die as a casualty of something he shouldn’t even have gotten himself involved in. Làng hesitated, his green eyes meeting Lin’s, his hands tensing on the still as his muscles held him halfway between freedom and captivity. Xiào said something else, his tone amused. Làng spat something angrily in response, and then, to Lin’s sheer and unadulterated surprise, he sagged and ducked back inside.

            A small part of Lin wanted to tell him off for it; most of Lin was busily trying to process that he was, actually, still alive; his delicate brainmeats were still housed securely inside his skull, and there was no intrusive bullet, and _oh_ fuck, he was panicking, he was on the floor and he couldn’t _breathe_ , and—

            --and Xiào was watching him with that same dark smile. Lin licked his bottom lip and forced himself to breathe faster. Nothing more useful than someone getting distracted from a job by their particular predilections. Not that they were likely to have another chance to escape for a while, but if this guy thought Lin was useless, so much the better. He didn’t know how he was going to avoid being useless _yet_ , but there were always options, if you kept your mind open. If you weren’t fucking _dead_.

            Wū Yáo’s eyes caught his as the two of them were manhandled into Lin’s tiny, poster-covered bedroom. They looked—angry, foremost, desperately angry, but also guilty for some reason Lin didn’t really understand. Automatically, he flashed Wū Yáo a comforting smile, because really he did not need the man to lose it when there were guns pointed at both of them. Besides, if something happened to him, Shāng would probably kill everyone and then himself.

            “Hold still,” Xiào told them, pulling out a set of zip ties.

            Wū Yáo spat at him, snarling something aggressive-sounding in Chinese, and Xiào backhanded him across the face, snapping his head back. Lin didn’t have to pretend a wince at the heavy smacking noise of the blow.

            “Hold him down,” Xiào told his bodyguard, and then looked at Lin. “If you try to get away, I’ll shoot him,” he said. Likely a bluff, Lin thought, since presumably Wū Yáo was the one Xiào been planning to kidnap in the first place. On the other hand, there were still two guns in the room, Lin didn’t particularly want to get shot himself, and he did need to make sure Wū Yáo didn’t get himself killed before he could get him to Shāng. Admittedly, there might be some currency in comforting the man if his best friend died, but that was a chancy play at best.

            “What do you want with us anyway?” he whined, letting his voice shake a little.

            “Nothing with you,” Xiào said with a shrug, then, as Lin had hoped, he bent over Wū Yáo and forced his chin up. “But I’m sure Shāng will give me the damn index if the alternative is letting his best friend die.” Wū Yáo growled almost incoherently.

            The _index_. Of course. Shāng’s stupid USB stick of supposedly The Most Terrible Viruses that he’d swiped when he bailed on China and ran for the US. Lin kicked himself for not realizing immediately what the stakes on the table were.  As he submitted to being pushed down as zip-tied as well—he noted with slight, clinical amusement that while Wū Yáo rated a gag and his hands tied behind his back, he, Lin, was not gagged and his hands were zip-tied in front. The position of his hands mattered very little, but the lack of a gag was potentially crucial. Lin licked his lips. All he had to do was play his cards right.

~

            Shāng’s phone vibrated, and he glanced down at it automatically. _Multimedia text attachment_ , from a number he didn’t recognize. He sighed, swiping his phone open. It better not be another text from a shady “male enhancement” company. He didn’t know for sure how they kept getting his number, but he strongly suspected that the culprit had white hair and constantly smelled of weed.

            For a minute, his mind couldn’t parse the image; it could only catalog bits and pieces—a shock of long crimson hair, a pair of angry, bright green eyes, a band of dark cloth where a smile ought to be. And then he realized it was Làng, curled in an unnatural position with his hands behind his back and a gag forcing his mouth into an uncomfortable-looking rictus. A mottled blue-yellow bruise surrounding one eye made his face look lopsided—an optical illusion unless it was actually swollen from the injury. There was someone else beside him on the bed—Shāng could see the edge of a slim, white hand on Làng’s elbow, a bright-colored zip-tie on that wrist as well, and a lock of white hair mingled with the red.

            With a sense of deep foreboding, Shāng turned back to his computer and booted up Discord. “Ah, shit,” he said, as he saw the three messages from Lin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for kidnapping, violence, and sexual harassment because fox is a douche


	5. enigmatic_gale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lin does what he does best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> additional, arguably mildly spoilery warnings at chapter end

            “This index you keep talking about,” Lin said, letting his voice sound slow and hesitant. “It’s labeled sorcerous_swords?”

            Xiào paused in the middle of a rapid Chinese conversation with his bodyguard and turned to look at Lin as if seeing him for the first time. He leaned down and pressed a hand into Lin’s throat, pressing down just enough for it to be uncomfortable. Lin made sure to wince and gasp, even though what he was actually thinking was, _I’m not that vanilla_.

            “What exactly do you know?” Xiào asked. “And how?”

            Lin squirmed a little, watched Xiào’s eyes subtly dilate, and firmed up his voice just a little, like someone out of his depth who’d just possibly sighted shore. “Ah—I’m a hacker,” he said bluntly. “And, well, I’ve been looking for my next big career break, so…”

            “You _hacked_ Shāng Bù Huàn?”

            This was the most dangerous part of the play. Lin shrank into the bed a bit. “No,” he said. “Not exactly. I just stole it from him. Or a copy of it, anyway.”

            “And you call yourself a hacker?” But Xiào was grinning.

            _Oh, I think you and I both know the line between ‘hacker’ and ‘thief’ is as wide as a single hair, at best_.

            Lin licked his lips and shivered a little, because he thought the other man might like that, and he was rewarded with a stronger dilation in those already dark eyes. _Oh, please, Mr. Kidnapper, don’t throw me into the briar patch_.

            “So you can get me the index?” Xiào asked, and there was a deep, avid depth to his voice.

            “I can get you _more_ than the index, my friend,” Lin said, with a smile. _Don’t oversell,_ Shāng would have said. Fuck that. Overselling was what he _did_. “What would you say to access to Shāng’s personal computer? You can find out exactly what he’s been up to since he stole the index. I promise you it will be worth your time. The thumb drive I took does have a few little tricks to it.”

            Although to his credit, Xiào didn’t have a large reaction, his eyes lit up, and that was enough. _Hook, line, sinker_.

            “I am afraid I will need access to a computer,” Lin said comfortably. “You understand that I wouldn’t want to give away _all_ my tricks. I’d rather have a living after this is all settled.”

            “All right.” Xiào nodded to his bodyguard. “Not your own, though.”

            “Entirely fair,” Lin agreed with a smile. As he got up carefully from the bed, he heard Wū Yáo say something in muffled outrage, but now really wasn’t the time to worry about that.

            “What about the kid?” the bodyguard asked. Or maybe it was.

            Xiào answered in rapid Chinese. Damn. Lin turned a rather vacant stare on both of them and said, “We’re friends.”

            Barking out a short, sharp laugh, Xiào grabbed Lin’s ponytail and pulled him close, and again Lin went pliant and deferent and shivery, and again, deliciously, it worked perfectly. For a moment, Xiào seemed to have lost the thread of what he was saying, and then he shook his head as if dazed and spoke, “You’re friends with Làng Wū Yáo and you’ve been stealing from Shāng Bù Huàn? Tell me another, friend.”

            Lin rolled his eyes. “Do you think he _knows_?” He nodded at the angry form on the bed. “He doesn’t even speak English. But he is cute.” Not even a lie, that last, Lin discovered, somewhat to his concern and chagrin.

            “Not much of a man,” purred Xiào. “But perhaps that’s what you’re looking for?”

            Not entirely certain what Xiào was getting at with that particular jibe, Lin merely smiled and shrugged.

            “If I can get you what I’ve promised, you don’t really need him, do you?”

            Those dark eyes flicked up and down his form. “True enough.” A heavy hand between his shoulder-blades steered him towards the desk. “Let’s see what you can do, then.”

            The bodyguard put a neat little laptop in front of him and logged on. Lin moved slowly towards one of the drawers in his desk. “I’m going to have to play with it a little,” he said, fumbling his way through the desk even though he knew exactly where the thumb drive was. “I encrypted it quite carefully to stop anyone else from getting into it.”

            “Just don’t disappoint me,” Xiào said, putting his hand on Lin’s neck and squeezing. Lin let out a pained hiss and shivered.

            “I—I won’t,” he mumbled, but he was smirking at the screen. Xiào thought he was afraid, too afraid to cross him. That was going to be a costly error.

            Quickly, he opened a terminal. “I’m going to have install a few tools, is—is that all right?”

            “Carefully,” Xiào warned him. Lin ran his tongue over his upper teeth and started installing brew, leaning back to show Xiào what he was doing and also to let him enter the password so he actually could install.

            “It’s a package manager,” Lin explained, letting his voice go high and nervous, and Xiào tugged his head back and locked eyes with him.

            “Please do not bore me,” he said pleasantly. “I’m not a moron.”

            “S-Sorry,” Lin gasped, and Xiào pushed his head back down. Lin felt hot breath on his ear and a hand sliding possessively down his back. Well, this was going _interesting_ places, wasn’t it?

            He typed, _brew install irssi_ , switched tabs rapidly, and then started a few more random installations for good measure. He needed to make sure he kept Xiào distracted so he didn’t pay _too_ close attention to what Lin was doing.

            $ /connect irc.dongli.net

            $ /msg edgelessblade i need your login credentials so i dont die

            A few nerve-wracking moments passed as Lin pretended he had to set up a miniature decryption program to get into his completely unprotected USB. Then, thank god, he got a reply.

            $ okay. where are you

            $ my apartment

            Lin typed out the address rapidly and received in exchange,

            $ shangbh, password: p@ssw0rd5

            So at least he wasn’t giving Lin his real password, but had taken the requisite two minutes to set up a dummy. At least the man had _some_ caution.

            $ is lang with you? is he ok?

            $ for now. we need an escape route like. really fast. so far i’m just stalling. and this is going to be giving this dude a way right into your computer so that’s also bad

            $ i’ll call the police

            $ just try not to get us killed will you

            $ you’re going to be fine. i’ll get you out of there, okay?

            $ we might die you know

            $ fuck you, man, trust me for once will you

            Lin paused for one moment before typing the response.

            $ ok

            “I’ve gotten you access to his computer,” he said softly. “It may take a bit longer to decrypt the drive.”

            Xiào gave a wordless exclamation and shoved Lin to one side; the bodyguard bent over his shoulder. Lin looked up and met Wū Yáo’s eyes. Somehow, the young man had gotten his hands out of the zip ties, and the instant that their captors had looked away, he had quietly sat up on the bed and started to slip forward, padding silently across the room on his bare feet. He could easily have gone for the window, but his eyes were focused on the gun at Xiào’s waist. Despite himself, Lin couldn’t help feeling grateful.

            Their captor started to straighten up, and Wū Yáo halted. Damnation. “What are you going to do?” Lin asked, sounding as desperately nervous as he knew how and throwing in a slight thick huskiness to his voice at the same time. He reached up with his zip-tied hands and clutched at Xiào’s collar. The other man looked down at him in amusement.

            “Whatever I like,” he said, taking the bait, just as Lin had hoped he would, twisting a hand into Lin’s long hair, wrenching his head back, and kissing him with a kiss that was full of teeth. Lin went rigid beneath him, struggling just a little, just enough to keep him interested, just enough to—

            Wū Yáo said something sharp in Chinese, and Xiào let Lin sag back down into his chair. “Up,” Làng said in garbled, heavily-accented English. “Come.”

            Lin slipped lithely out of the chair, considering whether to swipe the laptop, but frankly he’d rather get out of here without dying and the longer Xiào thought he had most of what he wanted, the better off the two of them would be. Shāng could figure out what to do about his compromised data _later_ , and the index itself probably wasn’t actually accessible from his personal computer. He did grab his phone and cut the zip ties off his wrists as Wū Yáo held Xiào still with his own gun pointed at him. Then he started for the door, but Wū Yáo said, “No,” and pointed out the window.

            Following his pointing finger, Lin realized there was a black car that he didn’t recognize parked on the corner, and in all likelihood it was _also_ filled with armed people who wanted to kill them. Lovely. The fire escape then. He pointed toward it, and Wū Yáo nodded, then gestured for him to go first.

            This was not Lin’s forte, he thought with frustration as he swung himself clumsily out onto the rickety metal and looked down and then up. The next moment, Wū Yáo was beside him, shoving against his arm and pointing upward desperately. From inside, Xiào was already shouting something loudly in Chinese, and the occupants of the car were exploding into action. Up it was, then.

            He hurried clumsily upwards, with Wū Yáo making urging, impatient noises at his back, until he found himself standing on the flat, concrete roof, with the hot afternoon sun bizarrely beating down on them. It was actually quite quiet up here, and Lin was having a hell of a time reconciling the fact he was still in extreme danger of getting shot with the lovely isolation of standing beneath the California sun like this and listening to the buzz and murmur of traffic far below. Wū Yáo shouted something that was probably Chinese for “hurry!” and gestured at—the next building over.

            “Are you crazy?” Lin asked him in stupefaction, and Wū Yáo rolled his eyes. He tucked Xiào’s gun into his belt and eyed the distance between the buildings, which had to be at least fifteen feet. What was the average human jumping capacity? Wū Yáo gave him an exasperated look that probably meant, _Have fun staying here and getting shot,_ and then turned, measured the distance once more with his eyes, and began to run. Lin watched as the small man took a flying leap and seemed to soar, landing on the next roof with at least a foot to spare.

            “You’re kidding me,” Lin said, as Wū Yáo turned and beckoned to him, urgently. “I will die. I will miss the jump and I will _fall_ , and I will _splat_ , and—” _And if you don’t, you are definitely going to take a bullet in the head_ , he reminded himself. If Shāng’s tiny musician friend could make the jump, he could too.

            All right, time to stop thinking about this. He backed up a few paces and ran, somehow managing to jump at the last minute. _Video games make this look so easy!_ The wind slapped his face, and he had time for just one awful surge of nauseating adrenaline before he was crashing into something soft.

            He had a moment or two to catch his breath and realize that Wū Yáo had caught him and steadied him when he was being tugged along the rooftop again. The redhead pointed to the next building.

            “Oh, _come on_ ,” Lin said miserably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for one or two transphobic comments because have i mentioned fox is a douche


	6. Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's not Fox who catches them this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> potentially spoilery warnings at the end of the chapter

            After a while, once he was reasonably sure they must have lost any immediate pursuit, Làng decided to take them back to ground level. Lin took his arm and pushed a phone in front of his face again, with Google Translate already pulled up. _I want to send Shāng a text message._

            Làng nodded; Lin took it back and this time typed out, _They won’t follow us. He has what he wants_. Probably true; Xiào wasn’t stupid enough to make an incident like this public. He knew when to cut his losses. Làng wanted to kick himself for his own stupidity, though. All he had done was make more trouble for Shāng. He could hardly have compromised him more if he’d just texted him from China. He put a hand to his head, feeling hot tears springing to his eyes. What a mess.

            He felt a soft brush against his shoulder. Lin was pushing him gently towards the library. _“We’ll wait for him to pick us up_.” Exhausted but with the adrenaline ebbing, Làng was at least able to get the gist of the English, and he didn’t want to bother going through the phone again, so he shrugged and let himself be pushed into the small main hall of what he realized must be a public library, from the cart of books sitting to one side waiting to be reshelved. There was a little diorama of a children’s book to their left, a line of plastic farm animals staring at a tiny web with English words scrawled in it. It was nice.

            “Stop where you are!” The words were in Chinese, and Làng spun on his heel immediately, reaching for the gun in his belt, only to find the other man’s gun was already leveled at them. _“Stop where you are!_ ” English. Lin turned as well.

            Who was he? The pale face and long dark hair looked vaguely familiar, but Làng’s mind was roaring with adrenaline, and he couldn’t place him. One of Fox’s bodyguards, perhaps; that seemed the likeliest. They had been—they had been wrong—to think that they were safe.

            “Put down the gun,” he told Làng steadily. “On the floor.” Làng hesitated for an instant; Lin put a hand on his shoulder.

            _“You can’t do anything. We’re in the middle of a public library._ ” It took a moment for Làng to parse Lin’s rapid speech, but either he was so high tension that his brain was working quickly, or he was just lucky. The other man raised his eyebrows and responded steadily, in English, and then, the same words—Làng was fairly sure—echoed in Chinese. “I am Lóu Zhèn Jiè. Shāng hurt the most precious thing in my world. I intend to do the same to him.”

            _“It’s a public space, don’t be stupid_.” Whatever Lin was saying, it wasn’t going to work. Làng held himself still, unwilling to admit to the fear of the gun that Lóu Zhèn Jiè held steady in his hands.

            “ _Quiet down. Don’t yell, this is a library_.” All three of them turned to see a man in a pair of half-moon spectacles advancing on them, frowning, a book tucked securely under one arm. Làng opened his mouth to shout some kind of a warning, but before the sound could even leave his mouth, Lóu Zhèn Jiè raised his gun and depressed the trigger.

            The noise was shockingly loud; the man crumpled immediately, blood and something grey spraying from the entrance and exit wounds the bullet had carved into his skull. Làng, head buzzing, took half a step back, but the gun was back on him and Lin before he could try to make an escape.

            “Now.” Lóu Zhèn Jiè walked forward, face blank, gun still steady. “Put the gun down.”

            Damn. As he did as he was instructed, Làng cursed himself, for having come here, for having done nothing other than to make things more complicated for the man he loved more than anything in the world. All he’d wanted to do was warn him.

            Lóu Zhèn Jiè stopped in front of Lin, grabbing his upper arm and dragging him forward, resting the barrel of the gun against his forehead.

            “ _Wait, wait, wait, let’s talk about this,”_ Lin said.

            “Don’t.” Làng took half a step forward, but Lóu Zhèn Jiè stopped him with a look. This wasn’t the Hunting Fox; this was someone with a much more personal grudge against Shāng. Làng didn’t know if there was any point in not running, didn’t know if anything he could do would save Lin.

            “I don’t need you,” Lóu Zhèn Jiè said, then repeated himself in English. Several library patrons were cowering behind bookshelves at this point; better, Làng supposed, than the alternative. “What I need is a message. And your corpse will deliver that message quite clearly.”

            “ _Don’t you want to hurt him?_ ” Lin demanded, his words falling over themselves so quickly it was hard for Làng to decipher what he was saying, but the naked terror in his expression was easy to read. Lóu Zhèn Jiè wasn’t to be manipulated the way Lin had manipulated Xiào Kuang Juan, either: he simply didn’t have the kind of desire that could be toyed with the way that Lin had appeared to play on Xiào.

            “ _All I need is his lover._ ” Lóu Zhèn Jiè gestured towards Làng, and Làng felt his heart thud heavily in his chest as his cheeks warmed. Shāng’s lover? Well, Lóu Zhèn Jiè could be forgiven for the assumption, but in the end the error could only save Shāng from heartache, so perhaps Làng should be grateful.           

            “ _Then you want me_ ,” Lin said urgently. “ _Oh, come on, surely you’re not an idiot.”_

The English was too much and too rapid for Làng to follow it, but the baffled confusion on Lóu Zhèn Jiè’s face, followed by the glance from Lin to Làng, was clear enough. Làng stared at Lin, not knowing what to think. Not knowing if it was a bluff or the truth, finally wrenched out of the man in his last extremity. Shāng had said nothing but—would he? Làng didn’t know if he had ever had a significant other, of any gender.

            “Good enough,” Lóu Zhèn Jiè said finally, then nodded sharply to Làng. “You. Over here as well. Two options is better than one, but I will make do with one if I have to.”

            Làng’s eyes went to Lin’s again. Was it worth it? Was he just trading a few moments of Lin’s life for Shāng’s? He didn’t know, but the thought of letting someone die for him—the thought of letting the man who had helped him get out of the hospital, who had laughed with him over cosplay pictures—the thought of the light in those red eyes switched off in an instant—he did as Lóu Zhèn Jiè ordered, and the man handcuffed them both rapidly, hands and feet intertwined so there was no way they would be able to get away. _We’re dead_ , Làng thought, and half-hoped Shāng wouldn’t show up to save them.

            They were pushed down on a couple of the uncomfortable library chairs, unable to resist with the gun that Lóu Zhèn Jiè kept trained on one or the other at all times. He was quite skillful with it, holding the gun in one hand while he secured the bindings with the other. Then he took a knife out from inside his jacket pocket, and, before Làng could even figure out how to react, sliced open his red t-shirt front and then back. Làng yelped with outrage and then the next moment he yelped with pain as the knife cut into the flesh of his back.

            “ _The fuck are you doing?”_

_“Making a statement. Be quiet, it will be your turn next_.”

            Làng ground his teeth together, determined not to give him the satisfaction, trying to ignore it when the knife played dangerously close to the newly-healed scars on his chest. It hurt like hell, but he’d dealt with pain before—period cramps, binding, the pain in his fingers when he practiced on the guitar for too long when he was little and didn’t have any kind of protection for them. He’d dealt with pain before, he told himself, over and over again, but it didn’t stop his head from drooping, didn’t stop the tears from trickling out the corners of his eyes. Hadn’t hated his body this much in a long time. When his tormentor moved to the soft flesh of his upper shoulder, he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a muffled cry through lips that were already bleeding where he’d bitten them.

            “HEY!” Làng would know that shout anywhere, and he looked up, not sure whether to feel relief or shame. For an instant he met Shāng’s dark eyes, flaming bright with anger, and then Shāng was pulling out a knife of his own. “I’m pretty done with this quarrel, get it?”

            Lóu Zhèn Jiè stepped forward, and Làng heard the soft wet noise of his own blood dripping to the floor. “You would fight me?”  
            “Sure, man,” Shāng said. “I got into a lot of trouble when I was a dumb kid. If you want a fight, I’ll give you a damn fight.”

            Lóu Zhèn Jiè looked from Shāng to Làng and back. “I want you to understand your sin,” he said, quietly. “You hurt someone very dear to me, and I am going to do the same to you.”

            “Come on, man, you can’t get out of here,” Shāng said bluntly. “The whole place is surrounded. A murder charge would be worse for you than kidnapping and assault.”

            “I don’t care,” Lóu Zhèn Jiè said flatly. “I am not what is important. Avenging the honor of my princess is all I care about. Now tell me—which of these two is your lover?”

            “Why, so you can kill the other one? I’m not stupid.”

            _Shāng_ , Làng wanted to scream. _Get out of here!_

            “Perhaps I can tell from your face,” Lóu Zhèn Jiè said, almost lightly. He moved slowly around behind Làng, and Làng tried not to flinch as the knife sliced across the top of his back again. “Nothing? What about the other?”

            It wasn’t nothing. Làng had seen the way Shāng’s jaw tightened slightly, the way it did when he was beyond angry and reining himself in. _I’m all right_ , he mouthed at Shāng, though he couldn’t tell if the other man had seen it. Lóu Zhèn Jiè’s footsteps passed beyond him and stopped beside Lin. “Hey, _hey_ —” Lin’s voice said angrily, and then he made a rough, pained noise.

            “Nothing? You must be good at pok—”

            The too-loud sound of a gunshot cut off the last word, and Làng twisted sideways to see the expression of surprise frozen on Lóu Zhèn Jiè’s face as he toppled sideways, a neat, dark hole in his forehead.

            Làng stared at the broken form on the floor, his back and arm still stinging with pain, trying to understand what it meant. Trying to—he looked up, and Shāng was there, was kneeling beside both of them. “Fuck, are you both okay?” Làng didn’t even know which language Shāng had spoken in; his hands were fluttering the same words towards Làng, the sign language they communicated in automatically by this point because it was always, always easier than words.

            _“Who nearly shot me?_ ” Lin raged. “ _I could have died, I could have been brain-damaged, I—”_

            “Hey, hey, man, you’re okay.” Shāng rooted around Lóu Zhèn Jiè’s body, digging out the keys for the cuffs, which he undid rapidly. “This wasn’t the plan, I’m sorry, okay?”

            “ _LANG_!” A tall, redheaded blur raced across the tiled floor of the library; the next thing Làng knew, he was being subjected to a profanity-laden examination as Líng Yá ran his hands over him and made incensed, vaguely mother-hen noises. Làng sagged, exhaling slowly, resting his forehead against Líng Yá’s shoulder.

            “What were you thinking, man?” Shāng demanded. “You were supposed to wait until I got him away from both of them.”

            “I don’t get paid to take of strangers, pal,” Líng Yá said, blunt and angry, his hands shaking a little against Làng’s chest. “Besides, he’s fine. Làng’s not. We need bandages.”

            Shāng made a tired, exasperated noise. “EMTs will be here any second. Let me see.”

            He shouldered Líng Yá to the side, and Làng winced and flushed because now it was Shāng’s large, rough hands carefully checking him over. “It’s not bad,” he muttered. “I already had the scars anyway.”

            “I am so sorry,” Shāng said heavily. “I am so sorry about all this.”

            Làng looked up at him incredulously, shaking his head, his throat too thick for words. _My fault_ , he signed. _My fault, I led them right to you_.

            “Nah, man, they were gonna come anyway, you just got caught up in the middle.”

            _“Is anyone going to pay attention to me,”_ Lin said in a surprisingly sulky voice for someone who had just been kidnapped twice in the past few hours.

            “Probably the EMTs,” Shāng shot back at him. “They’re—yeah, here they are.” He sighed. “Buckle up, everyone; this is about to get really tiresome.”

~

            Shāng had been right about it being tiresome, Lin thought irritably. He had answered far more questions far more truthfully in the past few hours than in the past few years, and he did not approve. Both he and Wū Yáo had been looked over by the medics, but since Lin hadn’t really been hurt, they’d let him go quickly. Shāng’s old friend had been longer, since he’d had quite a lot of nasty cuts that had had to be cleaned and bandaged. Apparently he’d had some stitches for the one on his arm. Lin had barely realized he was being hurt, Wū Yáo had been so stoic about it. And didn’t that feel weird? When the young man had finally emerged from the hospital, wearing an old t-shirt of Shāng’s with a white bandage poking out beneath, Lin had had a moment when he thought he was seeing an old friend, a moment of weirdness when his heart clenched and he felt the bottom drop of his stomach. And then Wū Yáo’s face lit up, and he looked past Lin to where Shāng was also standing idly on the steps, waiting, and he ran forward.

            Lin definitely had a peculiar feeling in his chest as Làng flung himself into Shāng’s arms, as Shāng caught him and pulled him tight into an embrace, speaking rapidly in Chinese. Even now, Làng wasn’t speaking much, just smiling and nodding, and it struck Lin that perhaps his halting quiet as he awkwardly mouthed broken English wasn’t just a consequence of not having a good grasp on the language.

            Lin had never felt more like an intruder, but he was also not particularly inclined to let stupid feelings like that keep him away from what he wanted, so he headed over to both of them and gave Shāng a particularly winning smile. “Ah, everyone safe and all together again,” he said pointedly.

            Shāng rolled his dark eyes at Lin, the same beyond-exasperated expression he seemed to wear whenever they were in proximity. “Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t have ignored your DMs,” he sighed. “Sorry.”

            “Well, perhaps I could overlook your rudeness for once,” Lin smirked. “Although the fact that it resulted in the two of us getting kidnapped, tortured, and nearly killed makes it a bit more of a serious offense, hm?”

            He expected Shāng to respond with a jab of his own, but instead, a shutter seemed to drop over those dark eyes, and he could not read the emotion in Shāng’s cool voice when he answered, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

            Lin felt unsteady, like solid ground was collapsing out from underneath him; before he could think of the appropriate response, Wū Yáo was reaching out as well, giving him a shy smile, and squeezing his hand briefly. He said something in Chinese, then paused, then got out, “Thank you,” in a stumbling sort of way. Lin stared at him.

            “Ah—you’re welcome, of course,” he managed after a moment. His hand burned where Wū Yáo had touched it. For an instant, he stood there blinking like an idiot, and then he rallied again and said, “But really I think I deserve something more substantial than an apology.”

            “Of course you do,” Shāng said with a chuckle, reaching out and ruffling his hair. Lin froze for another beat, because Shāng was not acting within the parameters of his predictions. Not that he ever really did, but this was further afield than he’d expected.

            “Well then,” he said with satisfaction, carefully keeping his eyes on Shāng and not Wū Yáo.

            In the next moment he was relieved of the necessity when Líng Yá approached and pulled Wū Yáo into another bear hug and began scolding him in Chinese. Pleased, although he still felt he had some choice words for the man who’d nearly shot him, Lin sidled closer to Shāng, then laced their fingers together, wondering if he’d pull away. He didn’t. He made a soft, muffled noise when Lin moved from that to pressing up against him, still didn’t pull away, though he’d pulled away from Lin often enough before when he tried similar things.

            Instead, he said, “you complete _asshole_ ,” and then to Lin’s shock and pleasure, he took enigmatic_gale’s chin in his large hand, tipped his face up, and met him halfway in the kiss. It wasn’t a terribly long kiss, but it was enough for Lin to get Shāng’s tongue into his mouth, and he was willing to call that a rousing success that would be easily followed up on after the dinner Shāng suggested when they pulled apart.

            So maybe he was smiling a little like a cat who’d conned someone out of a bowl of cream when he looked back to meet Wū Yáo’s crushed gaze. Lin felt his ears going strangely warm and tingling and though he didn’t move away from Shāng, he looked quickly away from the naked hurt in those strangely light eyes. _What,_ he thought angrily. _You snooze, you lose, kid_. But somehow he wasn’t quite as hungry as he had been a moment ago.           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for torture and some brutal murder
> 
> ling ya and lou zhen jie do not fuck around


	7. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lin is a rather begrudging matchmaker.

            The lanky bodyguard caught him outside the restaurant when he went for a vape break. Really should have seen that coming, Lin thought, vaguely frustrated, but he wasn’t exactly at the top of his game right now, for somewhat obvious reasons.

            “Can I help you?” he asked, masking his frustration by taking a long draw on his vape and then blowing it out into Líng Yá’s face.

            Líng Yá pulled a face, waved his hand through the smoke, and then crossed his arms. “You are a rude fucking asshole,” he snarled, his English only faintly accented, Lin noted.

            “So glad you’ve noticed.” He smiled lazily, and got a growl in return.

            “You _knew_ Làng’s head-over-heels for Shāng, you must’ve figured that out,” Líng Yá told him. “He’s not exactly subtle.”

            “Mmm. Shāng doesn’t seem to have cottoned on.”

            For an instant, he thought he was about to be punched; Líng Yá balled up his fist, but it remained at his side. “ _Bastard_. You knew, and you still—I know about you guys. You and Shāng weren’t dating or anything before this.”

            “Not for lack of trying on my part,” Lin drawled. “Bù Huàn does unaccountably have a thick head about this sort of thing.” He offered Líng Yá a bland smile. “A good thing the human mind realizes things in the face of imminent loss, isn’t it?”

            “Listen, you—”

            “It is hardly my fault that Wū Yáo did not see fit to capitalize on Shāng’s joy at seeing that he had survived the last tumultuous day.” Those damn eyes, looking at him and Shāng as if all the light had gone out of them. The slumping slope of Làng’s shoulders as he slipped back in through the window because Xiào had a gun to Lin’s forehead. Lin took another long draw on his vape.

            “Jesus, you’re a piece of work,” muttered Líng Yá. “It’s kind of a shame I _didn’t_ shoot you as well.”

            “Now, now, Shāng would hardly have been pleased with that.”

            “How the fuck did someone like _you_ fall in love with someone like Shāng?”

            Lin’s pipe jerked his hands. “Love?” he squawked, the word torn out of him before he could think, his usually ice-cool composure shattered. “I’m not—I just want his cock, Christ.” Something dragged him up out of his seat, and he stalked two steps forward till he was right in front of Líng Yá, glaring up at the tall Chinese man. “If your friend Làng Wū Yáo wants to confess his undying love to Shāng, I have no problems with sharing,” he snapped. “But does he really have the courage for that, I wonder?”

            Líng Yá grabbed him by the shoulder, wrenching him up almost onto his tiptoes. “Don’t you _dare_ talk about courage like you have any idea what that man has gone through,” he snarled. “You would have died if he hadn’t been there.”

            “I wouldn’t have been in any _danger_ if he hadn’t been here,” Lin flung back.

            “Oh really?” Líng Yá laughed flatly. “Fox’s been gunning for Shāng for months. He’d have taken what he could get, whether the guy was _in love_ with Shāng or not. So put that in your fuckin’ pipe and smoke it.” Then he let Lin drop and headed back inside, leaving vapeduck420 distinctly more shaken than he could account for based on the few sentences that had been exchanged.

~

            Làng had definitely not been crying in the bathroom. It was stupid to be upset, he thought angrily, splashing water onto his face. Shāng was fine. And it wasn’t as if he would have confessed anyway, because—because—he ran a hand through his hair. Because _what_? For a while, he’d convinced himself that it wouldn’t work because there was his career and Shāng’s career, and they lived in different countries, but now he was starting to wonder if he hadn’t just been scared of what Shāng would say. Words meant vulnerability. Silence was safer. If he never asked, he could never be rejected—so he’d thought. But now he was feeling the sting of rejection anyway, when he ought to have so many more important things to worry about.

            Damn it. _Damn_ it. He hadn’t been here, and Lin had, and he’d lost, and it shouldn’t fucking _matter_. Shāng was not a prize to be won.

            “Hey. Làng. Idiot boy.” Làng sighed and turned, giving Líng Yá a nod. “I just came from talking to the pipe bastard. He says if you still wanna confess, he’s fine with ‘sharing.’ His word, not mine.”

            Làng glared, and Líng Yá put his hands in the air. “Look, you gotta tell him,” he said quietly. “You can’t go on like this, okay?”

            _He doesn’t need to know_ , Làng signed. _I’m fine_.

            “You know he’d be pissed as hell if he thought he’d missed this. I dunno if he’s into you, but he loves you. You know that.”

            Làng knew Líng Yá thought that. He didn’t know if it was true, especially now, when they’d been living so far apart for the better part of a year. No, that wasn’t fair. He’d seen Shāng’s face when Lóu Zhèn Jiè had dug the knife in. He knew. But the fear rose pounding in his chest to choke him. _I can’t_.

            Frustrated sigh. “Think about it, okay?” Làng hunched his shoulders together, gave a small half-nod. The door to the restroom made a heavy noise as it swung closed. Làng sighed and put his face in his hands, not bothering to look up when the door opened again. “What did you forget?” he asked, sighing, turned, and found himself nose to nose with Lin, who was smiling widely and a little vacantly, an expression Làng was starting to realize was quite typical for him. He was holding out his phone, which he had apparently pulled up Youtube on for some reason.

            Làng stared at him, looking from the smile to the phone and back. _He’s fine with ‘sharing,’_ Líng Yá’s voice said in his head.

            “What?” he said, managing English on his first try, somehow. Lin hit play, and Làng stared in utter confusion at the resulting schmaltzy scene from a recent Chinese soap opera, where the female lead was clinging to the male lead’s arm and sobbing as she professed her long-held secret feelings. “What?” Làng said again, and Lin’s smile got wider and he pointed towards the dining room, where Shāng presumably was still eating his dinner.

            _What are you—no_! Làng was thrown off enough to try sign language at first, and then just went to violently shaking his head.

            “ _You are utterly pathetic,”_ Lin said in a voice that sounded extraordinarily kind. “ _Look. I don’t care. Fuck’s sake, don’t make me tell him myself._ ” He was speaking far too quickly for Làng to pick up any of the individual words, but his tone was clear. Làng felt his face heating up.

            “You already,” he managed in English, pointing a finger back in the same direction. Lin sighed, typed something into Google Translate again, and shoved it at Làng. “Diverse love.” What? Oh. He meant—

            Lin leaned forward, pressed a light but not-quite-chaste kiss to Làng’s lips, and then leaned back, looking very pleased with himself. Làng stared at him. “ _Please do not force me to confess your undying affection for you,_ ” Lin said, then ran a hand across Làng’s cheek and through his hair, pausing for an instant. Làng stared at him, letting a lock of Làng’s hair run gently through his hand, and then Lin actually went slightly pink and backed away. “ _Just tell him, will you?_ ” He pointed back at the dining room again and then retreated.

            Leaning over the sink, Làng splashed water on his face again. Fine. Even he could admit that if his apparent rival was instructing him to confess his feelings, things had gotten out of hand. Shāng would hardly stop being his friend at this point. Líng Yá was right. Làng had been a coward for long enough.

            His head was buzzing as he headed back into the dining room, and everything seemed very far away. He hoped he wasn’t going to have to deal with one of the stupid things his head did sometimes.

            Shāng was sitting at the table, talking to Líng Yá while Lin sat back and smirked at them both. “Bù Huàn,” Làng managed to get out from his constricted throat, and Shāng looked up at him with a genuine smile and a flash of affection in those dark eyes. _I need to talk to you_ , Làng signed.

            _Sure_. Shāng nodded. _You wanna go outside?_

            _If that’s not a problem_. His cheeks were so hot.

            _Not a problem at all_. _“Be right back,_ ” Shāng said in English, and he moved over to Làng and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Làng let himself be steered outside while his heart beat so fast he thought he might stop being able to breathe at any second. Shāng sat down on a stone ledge in front of one of those little planted—they weren’t really gardens, were they? Whatever they were. Làng was having a hard time getting a holistic view of the outside anyway.

            “So what’d you need to tell me?” Shāng patted the stone wall beside him. “Everything okay?”

            Làng was trembling. He didn’t know how to put words around this. He shut his eyes so he could just see the memory of Shāng’s face hours ago and that little tightening of his jaw. _I love you_ , he signed.

            There was a pause. “Um…I love you, too?”

            His eyes flew open in blank shock. Shāng had his head tilted a little to one side, and there was puzzlement in his dark eyes. “Did you not know that?” he asked after a moment. “I guess I’m not exactly all that verbal about that kind of stuff, man, but—hey, come on, sit down. Làng—Wū Yáo—I thought you were—” He cut himself off and his face tightened up again, a little. “I should be more verbal, huh.”

            Somehow, not quite sure how he managed it, Làng crossed the final remaining space between them, but instead of sitting beside Shāng, he slipped into his lap, knees on either side of him, straddling him. “I mean,” he croaked through dry lips. “Not just—but also—” put his hands in Shāng’s hair, leaned in, and clumsily brought their lips together. Something brushed lightly against the back of his hand; his eyes flew open again, and he realized that the breeze had dislodged a sea of pink-white blossoms from the tree above them, falling like delicate rain to land in Shāng’s dark hair.

            They stared at one another; Làng sat up a little and signed hastily, _Lin said it was all right_.

            Shāng chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “Man, he would.”

            “But if you don’t—like that—” Làng started to pull away and Shāng caught his wrist.

            “No. Hey. Wait. I didn’t know if you did, and I didn’t wanna presume.” His large hand cradled Làng’s cheek. “We weren’t exactly in the same country there for a while, and I had a lot on my plate. So did you.”

            “But I’m here now,” Làng murmured.

            “You’re here now,” Shāng agreed, and he guided their mouths together again.


	8. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Certain things finally happen. Lin manages to get trashier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> additional warnings at chapter's end

            “ _So I’m thinking threesome_.” Whatever Lin said as soon as all four of them got in the door of Shāng’s apartment made Líng Yá choke and Shāng pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “ _Foursome, if you’re feeling left out.”_

            He was definitely leering at Líng Yá, and Líng Yá glared, crossing his arms over his chest. “ _I’m straight and even if I weren’t, I have better taste than these two._ ”

            “What’s going on?” Làng asked.

            “You don’t really want to know,” Shāng sighed.

            Before Làng really knew what was happening, Lin was suddenly moving into his personal space, trapping him up against the wall. “ _So, threesome?_ ” he said nonchalantly. “ _Shāng, translate for me_.”

            “ _Oi, give him some space_ ,” Líng Yá said irritably, but whatever he was protesting, Làng was suddenly, stupidly warm all over.

            “He wants to know if you want to have sex with me and him,” Shāng said, with a longsuffering sigh, and the warmth blossomed into a desperate heat. Làng’s face was on fire, and that wasn’t all.

            “Ah—” he stammered. “Ah, I—I don’t have…” he trailed off. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to penetrate, it was just—it felt—wrong. If he didn’t have the right instrument.

            “What’s the problem?” Lin asked, and this time Shāng translated rapidly, falling into an old habit of theirs to use sign language as an interpretive mechanism. Làng looked down at his feet. He should probably explain this one before things went any further with Lin anyway. Shāng and Líng Yá had, of course, been there for the whole thing, and neither of them had made a big deal out of it—or any kind of deal at all, really.

            He ducked out from under Lin’s arm and put some space between them before answering, though. _I’m trans_.

            “Yeah, I know that. So, what’s the problem?” Làng’s face must have changed, because Lin sighed. “I saw the top surgery scars, you pass just fine.”

            _I don’t have—_ Làng looked helplessly over at Shāng, who gave him a puzzled look. _I don’t have a—_ he could either spell it out or make what would presumably be a very obscene gesture. Lin’s red eyes darted down Làng’s form and then up to his face, which had to be extremely flushed by now.

            “If you need a dick, I’ve got plenty in my closet,” he said helpfully.  Shāng somehow managed to translate this with a completely straight face, before cutting in, “You’ve what, man? No—never mind. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

            “They’re all perfectly clean, in case you were concerned about that, and I’ve probably got something that will match your skin tone,” Lin continued, reaching out to pat Làng on the cheek. Làng, for his part, really had no possible response to this.

            “Okay, I am extremely done with this conversation, I’m gonna go fuck about on the internet or something,” Líng Yá said. “If you hurt either of them, bastard, expect to die tomorrow.”

            “Would I do such a thing?” Shāng translated, and then said, “I dunno, man, if you thought it was funny.”

            Lin made an offended noise, then took Làng’s hand and tugged it. “C’mon, it’s not far to my apartment.”

            “You don’t have to go with him, man,” Shāng sighed. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

            He could feel the tips of his ears burning. _I want to be with you_ , he signed, after a moment’s hesitation. _I just don’t want to go back to that apartment_.

            Once this had been conveyed, Lin grinned. “No problem,” he said. “I can bring back an appropriate selection.”

            “You do that.” Shāng held a hand out to Làng. “We’ll be in my bedroom.”

            “Don’t you dare start without me.” Làng gave him a long look, and Lin shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing I’d do.”

            “Then it’d serve you right,” Shāng said firmly, and, putting his hand on Làng’s elbow, steered him towards the bedroom. Lin huffed indignantly behind them.

            Làng had seen Shāng’s bedroom before, since they video chatted pretty often, but it was different being inside it. It was big and cozy, with mostly undecorated white walls, except for one huge splash poster of Làng on stage, which made him duck his head and blush, and a set of cosplay photos pinned up beneath it, a couple of the three of them and a few of Lin as well. “I should take those down,” Shāng said, scratching his chin meditatively. “He’ll get a swelled head if I leave them up.”

            Maybe, Làng thought, although Lin had saved his life earlier and was being remarkably helpful now. Besides, he suspected Lin was going to have a swelled head no matter what Shāng did, so instead of continuing to stare at the photos, he put his arms around Shāng’s neck and drew him down into a long kiss.

            It took some time for the kiss to deepen, but that was Shāng for you: everything was slow and lazy, with him. He was great at fishing, and, Làng discovered as those large hands played softly and gently across his shoulders and back, he was pretty great at this, too, but there was nothing in the world that could get Shāng to stop taking his time. “I love you,” Làng said into his mouth, and got a throaty murmur in return. Then Shāng’s lips traced his jaw gently, and he fisted his hands in Shāng’s hair and gasped.

            Just as Shāng’s hands were starting to wind their way up underneath Làng’s shirt, the door banged open, and Lin breezed in, slid past them, and tossed eight or so long rubbery things onto the bed. Various different lengths, various different colors. Làng decided not to comment on the one that was purple and sparkly. Swallowing a little, he headed over, sorted through them quickly, and picked up one that was relatively small and reasonably close to his skin tone.

            _“_ Boring,” Lin said, which Làng did understand, and he glared.

            “Oi, shut it _,”_ Shāng told Lin.

            “ _I just want to see him in purple._ ”

            _“I’m not translating that.”_

            Lin pouted. “Fine. While he’s getting that on, can I ride you?”

            Shāng sputtered, then glanced over at Làng. “Nah, man, I think Làng gets first go, if he wants it. He’s been waiting longer.”

            “For _you_ , maybe, I don’t think he’s been waiting longer for your cock.”

            Làng gave him a steady look and responded, “You’d be surprised.”

            “Wouldn’t you prefer to penetrate?”

            “No.”

            Lin made a very sad face. “But then Shāng will come, and I’ll be completely left out,” he complained.

            “I cannot believe this conversation,” Shāng said with a sigh. _“_ Look, man, I’m pretty good at the stamina thing. I can probably get him off first and then get to you _.”_

            “I suppose we could double pene—”

            “I’m stopping you right there. Not the first time _._ ”

            Lin sighed overdramatically. “Fine.” He flopped morosely down on the bed. _“_ Perhaps I will get to know Purple better in the meantime.”

            “Please learn Chinese so I don’t have to keep translating all this.” Lin blew him a kiss.

            Taking a deep breath, Làng reached for his belt, sliding his trousers off, because they’d really delayed for more than enough time, and he needed to—well—get himself ready.

            “Hey.” Shāng cupped his cheek with one hand. “You good?”

            Làng nodded, flushing, as he stepped into Lin’s helpful offering, pulled it up, and seated it carefully, tightening the straps around his hips. Then he looked back up at Shāng, and pulled him down into another careful kiss. Shāng’s hands fell warmly onto his naked hips, and he pulled Làng tight against him; their erections touched through the cloth of Shāng’s jeans, and Làng was flushing hot again, deepening the kiss.

            Shāng pulled him backwards to the bed. “Let me get a condom,” he said in quiet, rapid syllables.

            “I’m on birth control,” Làng told him hopefully, but Shāng gave him a frown.

            “Better safe than sorry, man, especially if _he_ —” nodding at Lin, “—is getting involved.”

            With a soft sigh, Làng acceded. Shāng was probably right. As he shuffled through the bedside drawer, Làng pulled off his t-shirt as well, shivering a little with nerves as he stood naked in front of the other two. Lin gave him a bright, intense look and started to shimmy out of his own jeans. Shāng turned back, kissing him again, and Làng reached blindly for his belt; he was a little desperate by this point.

            Taking off his t-shirt, Shāng helped Làng get his jeans off and then sat on the edge of the bed, carefully rolling on a condom. Lin, half-dressed, promptly flopped over him avidly. _“_ Oh my god, it’s even bigger than I expected.”

            “Back. Off _,”_ Shāng said steadily, and he flicked Lin’s forehead.

            “Hmph.” Lin got up off the bed and circled around to Làng’s back. “Do you think you can really handle all that _?_ ” he breathed in Làng’s ear.

            Before Shāng could intercede, Làng punched him, hard, in the shoulder. “Of course,” he said calmly.

            “We can go as slow as you need to,” Shāng told him, with a smile that turned Làng’s insides to jelly and immediately made him rethink his plan of fucking Shāng into the bed just to put one over on Lin. Instead, he straddled Shāng and leaned down to kiss him and rub his thighs down Shāng’s cock, delighting in the way Shāng’s breath went ragged and the pupils of his eyes dilated wide and dark. His hands slid over Làng’s sides, carefully, as Làng positioned himself above him.

            “Tell me what you need,” Shāng murmured, kissing Làng’s shoulder and up his neck. “Please.”

            Làng shivered. “Extra lube, probably.”

            Shāng snorted. “Lin, get the lube, will you? It’s in the drawer.”

            “And who exactly have you been entertaining with it if not us?” Lin sulked, but he came back in a moment. “Here, asshole _._ ”

            _“_ I mean, myself, mostly _.”_ Shāng took the bottle from Lin and held it out to Làng. “You want to, or…?”

            “You do it,” Làng told him. His thighs were trembling a little, but it wasn’t from the effort of holding himself up.

            “Where do you want it?”

            Ah. Right. Làng flushed. “The—the front,” he managed, after struggling for words for a long minute. “I—you’re large enough that—”

            “Hey.” Shāng kissed him. “You don’t hafta explain anything. You already answered.” Pouring some of the liquid on his fingers, he slipped his hand between Làng’s legs, and Làng jumped.

            “Cold,” he said. “Sorry.”

            “I’m the one who should be apologizing.” The next minute, Làng’s breathing hitched, because that was— _oh god_ —that was his best friend’s fingers inside him and moving and rubbing up and down and—

            “ _Ahhh. Bù Huàn_.”

            “You need more?”

            Làng rocked against his hand. “I need _you_ ,” he said hoarsely.

            “Right.” Shāng spread his fingers inside Làng and guided him down with the other hand. “Ah, _fuck_ , Wū Yáo, you—”

            “ _Mmmm_.” Làng breathed into the feeling, rocking gently as he carefully sank down the rest of the way. Shāng _was_ big, bigger than anything that had ever been inside him before, but he definitely wasn’t complaining. His breath sobbed in his lungs as he waited for himself to adjust, the—his dick trapped between their stomachs.

            He didn’t move much at first, just circling his hips a little; Shāng responded, slow and careful, and Làng kissed him fiercely, pressing chest against chest, then awkwardly moving from one side to the other so he could straighten out his legs a little and hook his ankles behind Shāng’s back. He half lost his balance and came down a little heavily, and Shāng bit out an obscenity.

            “Careful,” Lin said smugly, putting a hand on the small of Làng’s back. Làng considered shaking him off, but it felt good, so he didn’t. Instead, he rolled his hips against Shāng again, and Shāng’s hands tightened on his hips. Làng expelled a gasping breath at the full sensation as Shāng began to move back against him. Even with the extra lube, it burned a little.

            “ _Ha—hell_ —fuck—” said Shāng. Làng kissed him again, moaning into his mouth, felt lips on the back of his neck, and Lin’s hands on his sides, and then his stomach.

            “ _Ooh_ , _I think I can see it in there_.” Lin’s head popped round his shoulder, peering down his front, and Shāng sighed explosively and shoved him back again, with a growled, “ _Do you mind!”_

            Lin went back to kissing down Làng’s spine, and Làng couldn’t find any reason to object to that, not when he was losing his ability to be coherent with everything that was going on, anyway. He was warm; Shāng inside him was warmer, and he kept bumping against Shāng’s stomach when he moved, the sensation traveling deep inside him and coiling bright and desperate in the base of his belly. His hands tangled in Shāng’s long, coarse hair. _I love you_ , he wanted to say, but he was past being able to form words from concepts.

            His head tipped back, and Shāng’s mouth was on his throat, then sliding down to the notch just above his chest. One of Lin’s hands slipped down across his belly, then lower, and Làng shouted at the sudden sharpness of the sensation. Over the hand that had disappeared, Lin was working his cock, and just seeing that made Làng gasp and sob and writhe, rocking his hips faster, trying to choke out a plea but still without the words to do so.

            “ _Oh, you really like that, don’t you.”_ Whatever Lin was saying, his voice had turned dark and gotten a little deeper; Làng could feel Lin’s erection pressing at his back. “ _Shāng, thank me. This was a brilliant idea of mine_.”

            “ _I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just your idea_.”

            “ _Close enough.”_

            His fingers worked their way deeper inside Làng, and Shāng made another noise.

            “Thought you didn’t want me to come yet, man, you’re not—h—helping _.”_

            “What, your famous stamina isn’t enough _?_ ” But the fingers withdrew a little, and then as Làng continued to rock his hips with growing desperation, Lin suddenly pressed down, _hard_. Làng jerked, heat twisting upward from between his legs across his whole body as the orgasm crashed over him, and he would have fallen backwards if Lin and Shāng hadn’t both held him up.

            “My turn now,” Lin said, and Làng, managing to catch that, reached back, twisted a hand in his ponytail, and yanked his head down, holding on as he recovered his breath.

            “At first I thought you were a nice person,” he said between pants, letting Shāng translate amusedly. “I was wrong.”

            “Your fault for not speaking better English _,”_ Lin smirked, nibbling thoughtfully on his ear. Shāng sighed.

            “Please don’t kill each other,” he said, once in English, once in Chinese.

            Làng kissed his forehead. _Only for you_ , he replied with his hands, and then carefully levered himself up and off of Shāng, his breath hitching as the other man’s length slid out of him. Everything was tingling, and he shivered a little, deliciously. _That was amazing_ , he told Shāng.

            “Good,” Shāng told him, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. “Pretty high on my list, too.”

            Lin flopped onto the bed, still wearing his shirt, although it was unbuttoned and fluttering loosely around his torso. “What does a guy have to do to get fucked around here _?_ ”

            “Try being patient,” Shāng grunted. “Jesus Christ, man. Give me a minute.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “And pass me a new condom, will you?”

            With an eager flip of his long white hair, Lin complied, and Làng sat back on the bed, one leg dangling off the side, letting Shāng roll off the condom and roll on a new one. Shāng stretched lazily, and Làng found his eyes tracing every ripple of those excellent muscles. Shāng wasn’t a thin man, and he wasn’t really a sculpted one, but he definitely had the kind of body that had seen heavy and practical use—quite a bit of which Làng had been there for in the old days—in comparison to what Làng strongly suspected was Lin’s carefully cultivated lithe physique. A glance at Lin showed that he was staring too, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, one hand tracing a slow line up and down the inside of his thigh. _“_ Fucking god,” he breathed. “Shāng. Please. I’m dying here.”

            _“_ Okay, okay.” Shāng stretched once more, got up, and padded around the bed to the other side, looking like nothing so much as a tiger waking from a nap. “So how do you wanna do this?”

            “Rough as hell,” Lin told him, his voice going a little high, and Shāng grinned, less like a tiger now than like a wolf.

            “Right,” he said. “Get on your hands and knees then. Hey, Làng, toss me the lube?”

            Lin got up, also stretching, although his was clearly performative, and Làng _wished_ he could move like that. Lin quickly rearranged a few of the pillows, putting one at head height and one at thigh height, and then went onto his hands and knees.

            Shāng went up the bed to him and put his hands on Lin’s waist, snatching the bottle of lubricant out of the air as Làng tossed it over. “ _You need me to prep you?_ ”

            “ _I need you to fuck me_.” Lin’s voice was almost pained, just on the edge of raw. “ _Get inside me, big boy_.”

            “ _Do not call me that ever again_.” Shāng coated his erection with lubricant and tilted Lin’s hips up a little, and Làng abandoned all pretense of not watching as he drove into Lin. Lin gave a breathless exclamation and let his head fall onto the pillow.

            “ _Oh, fuck_ ,” he managed after a minute, and Shāng grunted, taking a handful of long white hair and yanking his head back. “ _Fucking Christ_ ,” Lin moaned. “ _Yes, oh god, yes, fuck me harder_!”

            “ _God, you are needy_ ,” Shāng groaned, pulling almost entirely out and then slamming back in. Làng felt a whimper bubble out of his lips and pressed his hand to his mouth to stifle it. Lin, who very clearly had no such compunction, howled at the top of his lungs. “ _Christ, yeah, right there, oh god!”_

            Vaguely, Làng wondered if there was likely to be a noise complaint. The bed was creaking almost as loudly as Lin was shouting, as Shāng kept thrusting hard, the front of his thighs slapping into the backs of Lin’s. After another moment or two, his lips quirked, and he slapped Lin’s ass briskly; Lin responded by shouting his name at the top of his lungs.

            Biting his lip hard, Làng realized he was rocking slowly against the bed, sensation building between his legs again as he watched them. Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to be as hot as it was. Lin had devolved into a mewling mess, his face pillowed on his arms, but Shāng didn’t show any signs of slowing down or stopping. “ _Please, fuck, Shāng, fuck—ahh—mnph—”_

_“Please—”_ Shāng grunted. “ _What_?”

            “ _Wanna cum, hell—fuck—I wanna—I need to—please—”_            

            “ _I dunno, man, you were pretty insistent on having a good long fuck_.” Shāng scratched his head. “ _You sure you want it to be over this fast?_ ”

            “ _I—fuck—hgnggagh—”_ The words were mostly happening too fast for Làng to follow, especially with Shāng too distracted to be translating, but he had a pretty good idea of what was going on from Lin’s tone alone, and he bit his lip and tightened his legs, slipping a hand down and working at his cock.

            “ _Shāng you utter cunt I swear to fucking—mphh—”_

_“Language_.” Shāng pushed Lin’s head down into the pillow and slowed the pace of his thrusts. Lin whined and struggled, pushing his hips desperately back up against Shāng.

            “ _Mnggfff!”_

            “Much cuter when you can’t hear what he’s— _hnh—_ saying, isn’t he?”

            Làng wasn’t sure if he was nodding or not, although he and Shāng were definitely looking at each other, dark eyes boring into his. He twitched a little, hand still sliding along his cock, and Shāng groaned. “Ah—shit—I’m—” He doubled over Lin with another grunt, pressing his face into Lin’s white hair, and both of them collapsed to the bed in a welter of limbs.

            After half a moment, Lin popped right back up. “I’m still hard,” he whined. “Come on.” Shāng propped himself up on an elbow, going back to translating, and then raised an eyebrow at him.

            “It probably serves you right,” he said calmly.

            “It does not! I rescued Làng from anaphylaxis and everything! And then I got kidnapped! And both of you have gotten off and I’m still—mph? _”_ Làng had scooted across the bed and kissed him on the mouth. He tasted, unsurprisingly, of weed. Of course.

            Shāng slung an arm comfortably around Làng’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. “So, you got this one, or do you want me to get him off?” he asked.

            Làng broke the kiss and grinned, flopping onto his side, pressing his thighs together, and patting them invitingly.

            “Oh, fuck, yes, please,” Lin said avidly, and the way his cock twitched as he got clumsily up onto his knees didn’t need any translation. Shāng moved out of his way, around to Làng’s back, putting a large hand in Làng’s hair and stroking gently. Làng shivered with pleasure, not quite letting his eyes shut, but letting them droop closed as Lin half fell on top of him and slipped his cock between Làng’s legs.

            Hands everywhere—hands and heat. Shāng’s hand in his hair, Lin’s hands holding him steady as he muttered and sobbed and thrust, the touch of him between Làng’s thighs silky and slick and delicious. He jogged Làng’s cock as he moved, and Làng had been close again already, in any case. He shivered into a second orgasm as Lin gave a gasp and a groan and spilled sticky fluid down his thighs.

            Lin flopped down next to him; Shāng kissed his cheek again and ruffled his hair. “Yeah, we’d better get cleaned up,” he said slowly, and Làng yawned, stretched, and then nodded.

            “Oh, good, a shower _,_ ” Lin said happily. “That should be just enough time for us to recover for a round two _.”_

            After seeing Shāng’s translation, Làng smacked him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter stuff, which is mostly warnings for people with dysphoria or specific DNWs: penetrative (non-anal) sex between a cis man and a trans man with very light allusions to dysphoria, rough anal sex (Lin/Shang, are we surprised), intercrural sex, strap-on for Lang (thanks Lin)


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrap-up.

            Làng woke with a gasping shout. He couldn’t move, his arms trapped flush against his sides, and what had Fox done to Shāng, what was happening, was it too late—it was too late, wasn’t it, oh god—

            “Hey! Hey, easy, man.” Shāng was beside him, Shāng’s hands carefully unwrapping the sheets that had gotten tangled round him while he was sleeping. “You’re okay. So am I.”

            They were in Shāng’s apartment. There was the splash poster of himself on the walls, the soft insistent blue glow of Shāng’s sleeping laptop. At his back, someone else was whimpering and twitching. “Ah, fuck,” Shāng said. “Hey, scoot over, man.”

            It was hard to get his sleepy-heavy limbs to move, but after a moment, he did, sliding up to the head of the bed and pulling his knees into his chest, as Shāng reached past him and shook Lin’s shoulder.

            There was an explosion. Lin was on his feet before the coverlet finished settling, his hand outstretched as if he were holding a knife. “ _Fuck. Fucking—don’t fucking touch me, don’t—_ ” He cut himself off, staring into Shāng’s concerned face, then raised his hands, palm up, and slowly sank into a cross-legged position. “ _Sorry_.”

            “ _Hey, no apology necessary_.” Shāng looked from one of them to the other, his hands moving rapidly so Làng could follow his speech. “ _It’s not a big surprise you’re both having nightmares_.”

            Làng sank a little into the pillows at the head of the bed, but Lin reacted with a surprisingly violent snarl. “ _I don’t have nightmares!_”

            Shāng snorted. “ _Well, one way or the other, I’m gonna go make some hot milk for Làng, anyway._ You okay with that?”

            Làng nodded shakily. “I’ll come with you.”

            They let Lin sag back against the bed, but as they reached the door, his voice called out, thin and wobbly, “ _Make mine a White Russian_.”

~

            When Lin woke up again, the piercing headache rocketed him from sleep to consciousness in an instant. Gritting his teeth, he rolled onto one side, and immediately ran into something soft that made a protesting noise. Squinting against the pain, he saw red hair spread across the pillow, mingled with black. Làng’s eyelashes fluttered and his eyes opened just a bit.

            “Go back to sleep,” he murmured. “I just need some Advil.”

            Làng yawned, mumbled something in Chinese, and turned slowly onto his side, curling into Shāng’s embrace. Lin paused, staring down at both of them for a long moment. They were very beautiful, he thought distractedly, as he got carefully to his feet and slipped off the end of the bed as quietly as possible. And more importantly, based on the events of the previous few days, they were both _his_ , so that was—

            He paused at the entrance to the bedroom and bit his lip. Had he really just thought that? He just wanted Shāng’s—

            _Mine_ , a very loud voice said in his head, and he sighed and leaned against the door-jam. Well, just as long as neither of them ever found out.

            He opened the door, headed for the bathroom, and nearly collided with Líng Yá, who was leaning against the wall tiredly, toweling off his hair. “Good morning!” Lin greeted him.

            “Listen, pal, you owe me a pair of better noise-canceling headphones,” Líng Yá told him. “Because I never want to listen to that again.”

            Lin blew him a kiss and promptly slipped past him into the bathroom. So perhaps he wasn’t _entirely_ losing his touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I have at least one more fic for this series (which I'm going to post imminently) and a third hopefully in the works, so stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> Title ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface), haha I'm hilarious


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